The Two Kinds of Writers — The Thinker and The Tinkerer. Part 2.
In my last Medium post, I wrote about the two kinds of writers inside me — The Thinker and The Tinkerer.
The Thinker is exactly like that namesake Rodin statue.
The Thinker LOVES to think, loves going deep, loves to turn a problem on its sides. She is like a monk. She can spend hours contemplating, deepening thought, practicing writing as a way to touch something deeper.
Then, there is The Tinkerer.
The Tinkerer LOVES to experiment and tinker around just as much as The Thinker loves to think and research. She loves to play! She gets bored easily, loves variety, and loves to jump like a restless monkey from one idea branch to another.
These two writers inside me have distinctly different needs.
This is what The Thinker needs:
- Books
- A Library Card
- Several Hours Alone Writing and Thinking Per Week
- A Chance to Say “I’ll get back to you” and get to THINK before giving an answer.
- A Farewell to Impromptu “Brainstorming” Sessions. She hates them and hates being put on the spot.
- A Notebook to Write in. Ideas go deep when she can slow down.
This is what The Tinkerer needs:
- Permission to Jump from Idea to Idea.
- Short forms like short stories and personal essays to play with and experiment inside.
- Fun Experiments to Fill her With Excitement: I learned how to make ink from scratch as a way to give her some playtime.
- Creative toys on my desk: A Mini Mandala Coloring Book, Child’s Clay, and stickers to put in notebooks.
- A Chance to Explore Light and Airy Subjects Instead of Going into the Depths.
I definitely take care of The Thinker a lot better than The Tinkerer.
But they really are the Yin and the Yang of my creative life. Without one, the other gets crusty. Without fun, creativity becomes neurotic. And without deep thought, writing becomes superficial, as if I am skimming the surface of my mind.
So, I want to get better at moving my energy with them, sometimes going deep into the inner ocean to wait for luminescent creatures, and sometimes, letting the air currents carry me from branch to branch.
Together, they both form the spiderweb of my creativity, and I don’t want to live inside a torn web.
What about you? Which writers live inside you?
What do they need?
How can you feed them so they don’t get too hungry and go ravaging inside you?
Ritu Kaushal is an author and creativity coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the recipient of a Silver Medal at the Rex Awards, co-presented by the United Nations in India. Ritu writes about highly sensitive people and sensitive creatives on her site Walking through Transitions.
